Pollack's cancer was inoperable because it riddled his entire body and the original site was never found.

Trained as an actor, Pollack enjoyed an unusually long and prolific career as a producer and director distinguished by his uncanny knack for delivering high quality, commercial films in just about any genre, often with notoriously demanding stars, from Barbra Streisand (The Way We Were) to Dustin Hoffman (Tootsie). He also made several films with Robert Redford (The Electric Horseman) and Harrison Ford (Sabrina). Always hard on himself, Pollack never assumed that he had scored a hit; he was in despair in the editing room before audiences fell in love with his Oscar-winning Out of Africa. And the same was true of the challengingly difficult Tootsie, in which he played one of many memorable supporting roles. Pollack also enjoyed acting in other directors' films, such as Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, and most recently, Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton.

Crafting quality studio entertainment is a lot harder than it looks: at the end of his long career, Pollack boasts a number of films likely to be remembered as classics. And he is respected, admired and personally revered as one of the more gifted, capable and generous talents to come through Hollywood. He certainly has a place in my own pantheon of all-time Hollywood greats.

Pollack told The New York Times in 1982:

"Stars are like thoroughbreds," he said. "Yes, it's a little more dangerous with them. They are more temperamental. You have to be careful because you can be thrown. But when they do what they do best -- whatever it is that's made them a star -- it's really exciting."

..."if you have a career like mine, which is so identified with Hollywood, with big studios and stars, you wonder if maybe you shouldn't go off and do what the world thinks of as more personal films with lesser-known people. But I think I've fooled everybody. I've made personal films all along. I just made them in another form."